Seems many don’t know but in Scotland you don’t get an insulin pump because you want one. You get an insulin pump because MDI does not work. You have to PROVE MDI does not work. Where other nations want you to improve your HBA1C before pump, here it is almost the opposite.
You have to prove that ONLY an insulin pump could manage your diabetes. Funding here is kept in iron fists. When I was put on the waiting list I was told it would be THREE YEARS. I got mine after 18 months only because the Scottish Government released more funding to the NHS and
circled it for diabetes. My aunt who has numerous complications from diabetes only for hers two years later because her levels on paper looked too good. My own endo&dsn had to argue my relatively good hba1c was because I was either in the 20s or hypo and doing things ‘right’
Then you sign paperwork saying if you don’t achieve x and y goals they will take the pump off you again. Children are more likely to get a pump and just grow up with it as their tool. They take smaller doses etc. But adults? Getting any tech or aids (strips) is war. All out WAR
My mum has 0% chance of getting a pump on the NHS because her hba1c is excellent and she achieves this by TIR and not ‘swings and roundabounts’. Our mutual DSN told her that to her face when I got mine. Almost to fob off her asking if she found mine interesting. We don’t pay
anything up front outside our national insurance contributions here so the flipside of that is you don’t ask, you don’t want. You get what you NEED, MAYBE, if you can PROVE you need it and there is FUNDING, and there is a TIMETABLE. So yay ‘free at the point of use’ but. Urgh
Also you don’t get to choose your pump in my region. There is one pump and that is it. Some healthboards have variation but mine does not. We used to but then animas pulled out. So NHS Lothian is Medtronic or bust now. Unless you can seriously argue your case that it doesn’t work
Also you don’t get to choose your pump in my region. There is one pump and that is it. Some healthboards have variation but mine does not. We used to but then animas pulled out. So NHS Lothian is Medtronic or bust now. Unless you can seriously argue your case that it doesn’t work
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